Comparatives
The discussion between Bresnan (1975, 1976a,b, 1977) and Chomsky (OWM) about the existence of unbounded rules may rightly be called exemplary as regards the integration of theoretical and empirical argumentation. The phenomenon of comparative formation in English played a central role in this debate. The compared constituent in the comparative clause can be arbitrarily far from the head of the clause in comparative deletion constructions (Ross 1967). Bresnan proposes to account for this unbounded dependency between the two compared constituents by means of a transformation termed Comparative Deletion. This rule deletes the compared constituent of the comparative clause under identity with the head of the clause and can apply over an unbounded domain (so-called deletion over a variable). An important assumption in Bresnan’s analysis is that comparative deletion (see (1)) and comparative subdeletion are one and the same phenomenon, and as such involve the same computational operation.
(1)
As Bresnan (1977) points out, the missing constituent in the subcomparative clause does not correspond to anything that could have been moved. As shown in (2), for example, a specifier like how many cannot be removed from a noun phrase.
(2)
For Bresnan, the well-formedness of (1) and the ill-formedness of (2) show that movement cannot be involved in subdeletion. And if sub deletion and comparative deletion are one and the same process, then comparative deletion should not be derived by movement either. In view of facts, this in turn leads to the conclusion that deletion must be long-distance deletion that is subject to island constraints, implying that islandhood is not a diagnostic property of movement processes.
Chomsky goes into the matter at length in OWM. He presents evidence calling into question a uniform treatment of comparative deletion and comparative subdeletion. If comparative deletion involves wh-movement and hence displays the wh-diagnostics, then subdeletion should not be accounted for in terms of this movement rule.
